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Tribal Memories
Tribal Memories was a comic strip by Peter Milligan and Tony Wright which was published in 2000 AD progs 585 to 588 in 1988. It was set on a human-occupied alien planet in the future and narrated by self-described "shallow, contemptible, inhuman specimen" Mohammed 'Mo' Robinson, whose job it was to extract and input people's personalities. His contention was that the science of personality transfer had created a species of pot-pourri people, none of whom knew which memories were theirs and which were someone else's. He therefore travelled back to Earth to find the last 'real man', a Maasai, so that he could extract his authentic, unadulterated memories, for the benefit of the human species and Robinson's bank account. Mo captured the Maasai and implanted an English language program so that he could communicate with the other humans. He took him back to the planet he, Mo, lived on, which was also inhabited by an oppressed alien indigenous species whose position was analogous to that of black people in apartheid-era South Africa. Mo decided not to extract the memories of the man who was happy to be known simply as 'the Maasai' until he had spent time meeting and greeting the human population at swanky parties, but the Maasai preferred to hang out with the alien (an ironic word to use, in the circumstances — perhaps 'non-human' would be better) population instead. The Maasai killed a police officer who was assaulting a native. He and Mo went to the natives' slum area to wait for the police to turn out in force and arrest them. The situation quickly deteriorated into a natives-versus-police riot sparked by the accidental death of a child: "Officer Megan was only nineteen. He found himself surrounded by alien faces. Hateful, resentful alien faces. To officer Megan it was a warning shot. A shot that said 'Stay away. I am a highly-trained law officer'. To the parents of a young alien called Ptomme, it said 'Your son's life is over'." The crowd started chanting "Uhuru!", the word that the Maasai had taught them meant 'freedom'. In the ensuing fracas the Maasai was shot by a police officer. Mo was exiled to Earth for helping to spark a native insurrection: "They'd taken their first step on the freedom road. But look at me. Me. Whose forefathers were slaves, like them, on that road. Told their culture was worthless. Bought and sold like... like memory implants... Took centuries to change the laws. Centuries more to change hearts and minds. Ours as well as theirs. And what are we now? Slavers. Treating them as though... go on. Say it... say it... As though they were black. We're still on the freedom road. As long as one soul is on that road, we're all still on it." The story's final panels revealed that the Maasai had survived the shooting and had also been left on Earth. Fortunately, it turned out that there had been other Maasai there all along, and Mo prepared to start a new life with them and his friend. Category:2000 AD Characters Category:2000 AD strips Category:IPC Characters Category:IPC Adventure strips Category:Adventure strips Category:Tony Wright/Creator Category:Peter Milligan/Creator Category:Diarists and first person narrators Category:Peter Milligan/Writer